Cyberians

Dr. Chapman was going over his video log.  He asked the computer to repeat what it currently had in its databanks about their influence on the Earth culture so far…

Computer’s Voice:

Acegum was their product, it was a wonder compound that used ‘sticky-gum-technology’ to clean women’s facial complexions and hair.  Dirt and oils just naturally bonded to the facial cleansers and hair shampoos made from this compound and then simply washed away after the lather phase of the cleansing process.  This compound was introduced to Earthlings by a race of beings called the Cyberians.  However, instead of putting some of the monetary proceeds from sales towards charitable causes, they built weapons of mass destruction with them.  Stacy Malone was a college theatre major who was a murder victim of one of their weapons of mass destruction.  She was killed with a retractable dagger that sprayed poison into her system.  She died instantly both from the wound and the deadly poison.  Now, the Cyberians have lost one of their cells in each of their bodies.  It’s kind of like the missing-man flying formation that jet-planes fly where one out of the jets leaves formation and flies off independently.  They are each missing a cell and therefore will experience severe lethargy sometimes.  Enter Clarity, a clear-thinking author whose blood samples contribute healthy cells into the Cyberian cell pool.  Essentially, her blood helps them move forward.  She is self-publishing a book on budgeting.  The book centers around meal plans that are organized through leather-bound-tri-panel-folding-dinner-menus.  She creates representations of these dinner menus on graphical computer software akin to a word processer mixed-in with a graphical interface.  In this way she can create themes to her menus with pictures, graphics along with the actual names and explanations of the dishes.  She can also organize her rolodex recipe boxes and countless cookbooks based on these menus.  They are fun ways to organize what her family loves to eat and plan a meal budget accordingly.  During weeks when her budget is tighter than other weeks, she might be relegated to serving a couple of different variations of healthy vegetable bisque soups.  Clarity will get very creative with her menus that have now evolved to encompass all three meals of the day – breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Dr Chapman was very pleased with the way that the computer voice Eden had assessed where the Cyberians’ position was situated in the young civilized Earth culture.  Through research, Eden the ubiquitous computer voice told him that that murder victim Stacy was slated to have had a son in the near future, who was to be the one to unify all of Earth.  Therefore her murder, had an intense backlash that resulted in one less cell in each of the bodies of the Cyberian population.

“Acegum is our saving grace…” Chapman told his second in command, “…without it we would have no way of compensating Clarity for her healthy blood samples.”

“Her name is so appropriate also, her healthy cells give is the clarity and momentum to move forward in our daily lives,” Sub-Commander Oliver replied.

“….yes, and she thinks that it is all for cancer research…In some sense that missing cell in each of us, makes us susceptible to cancer, so yes, her contribution of healthy cells through her donated blood samples is truly justified.”

“…very good sir, I will direct research and development to step up the creation of more Acegum,” Oliver said on his way out of Dr. Chapman’s hidden office cubicle.

In the meantime, one of Clarity’s pet projects was to help a family in which one of the family members had lost his job and was involved in a drunk-driving accident.  She was helping them to put the pieces back together in their lives. 

Dr. Chapman, by this time, was aware of all of Clarity’s blogposts and he asked the computer voice Eden to relay this one to him, one more time….

Computer’s Voice:

Clarity’s Budget Blog #63

Out of the blue, 3 different cars were side-swiped.  The first car was backing out of its driveway, when a red convertible sports car was barreling down the nearby neighborhood, leaning right and plowing into the right side passenger door.  Then, it backed up hitting the left driver’s side door of a parked car at its rear right.  This drunk driver was in obvious denial and just could not believe all the damage he was causing, because he managed to back up into another parked car, scraping the left passenger door of it, before passing out at the steering wheel. 

A few minutes later sirens could be heard approaching the disasterous scene.  Edward, the name of the man who had done all of the damage was out cold, wreaking of whiskey.  Apparently he had been out drinking all night because yesterday that morning, he had lost his high-income job!  It had been heart-wrenching news for him who was the father of four teenagers, to learn that at the moment, he could no longer support all of them.  He was no means a top wage-earner, but Edward had done alright for himself.  Edward’s story was the front page news bright and early the next morning. 

Fortunately no one was hurt from all of the car scrapes, just of course Edward’s state of self-perception.  Many people distanced themselves from Edward and his situation. I read on in the newspaper to make sure that the family that was backing up from their driveway that unlucky morning had walked away from the accident unscathed.  After that, I took an interest in what would happen to Edward, because he reminded me so much of my own husband Gary.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one, because the local public access news studio followed Edward as he was admitted into rehab.  Weeks later, the same news crew filmed him as he took computer classes at the local community college to improve his job skills. 

Apparently there are independent aptitude tests that you can take to see how much of the computer concepts you have a grasp of.  To publicly see Edward go through this, brought a tear to my eye because he was acquiring a lot of computer knowledge. 

His next step was to go to a job agency – yet he took his time about it, because it seemed he wanted to re-assess the gift given to him by God to bounce back.  What I saw in Edward was that though calamity befalls everyone, the key is to be able to hold your head up high and bounce back.  Human resiliency is such a fascinating trait and it could clearly be seen as Edward marched up the job agency stairs to meet up with their representative.  He turned a negative into a positive. 

Financially, I wanted to help so I graphically created a menu for his family, had it printed and bound with a beige-leather-backing.  I had heard that his whole family loved seafood, so in the dish entrees, I made sure to include lots of shrimp and fresh fish dishes, even lobster for special dinner occasions.

I swirled on lots of whimsical graphics and made the menu especially appealing to his wife.  Included with this package gift contribution from me were boxes of index cards of all of the recipes that comprised the menu entries.  I had eight menus printed up, each of them variations of the original Specialty-Seafood one.  I dropped it off a their front door one Saturday morning.  Edward himself answered the doorbell and was so appreciative and gracious in response to my gesture of kindness.  To this day, his family and mine exchange Christmas cards every year and his passing troubles remain a reminder to me of how just resilient a human being can be.

Dr. Chapman was fully satisfied that he was abreast of what had been happening in Clarity’s life…

***************************

As the conveyor belt hummed along producing haircare, skincare, cometics and nail enamel products, with of course the ‘sticky-gum-technology-compound-acegum’ as their prime active ingredient, he looked back and assessed that although the global unification of Earth as one people was slightly derailed by one of their weapons of mass destruction, causing their whole Cyberian race to become wayward, their investment in the author Clarity and the book that she was writing on food budgeting through the compilation of her blogspots, put them back on track, giving them the momentum to survive.

Meantime, back at the Acegum website, testimonials poured in about their growing beauty product line:

“…These shampoos and conditioners have really gotten my hair back into shape.  It’s now become voluminous, shiny and bouncey…”

“….There are no comparisons with the leading brands when it comes to Acegum’s skincare line….they are miles ahead of the competition….”

“……I am astounded at how clean my hair feels after each washing, there is no milky residue to weigh it down….”

“….You can rest assured that I will be trying the rest of Acegum’s product line including their nail polish, because it will just glide on nail beds and adhere to its surface as if it were baked on!”

The Cyberians knew they weren’t perfect.  They had yet to contribute to a charitable cause, but that was because of the anonymity that they faithfully stuck to.  Thank goodness that they did have funds to help Clarity pay for self-publication in exchange for her ‘well-meanining-cancer-research-blood-samples.’  In Dr. Chapman’s mind, there was still a balance in the continuum…